


Seasons

by SilverSkiesAtMidnight



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Falling In Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Getting to Know Each Other, Light Angst, M/M, Mild Blood and Gore, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protective Avengers, Temporary Character Death, holiday fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-04-29 04:47:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14465334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverSkiesAtMidnight/pseuds/SilverSkiesAtMidnight
Summary: In spring, the swallows come.Two days after Peter sees the first swallow of the year, he finds a plastic Easter egg on the ground.Inside is a grenade.Or: Peter and Wade, and their relationship between one spring and the next.





	1. Spring

In spring, the swallows come. 

The swallows, out of all the birds, are his favorites. Peter sees a lot of birds in his line of work, probably more than almost anyone else in the city. Even the bird watchers see them most often when they’re still. 

But Peter gets to see them fly, and the swallows fly like they know exactly what a gift it is. 

As far as he’s concerned, spring in New York City doesn’t really start until he’s seen one. 

Two days after Peter sees the first swallow of the year, he finds an egg on the ground. 

This is probably unrelated to the appearance of the swallow, as the hot-pink plastic-ness of the egg seems to indicate that a person, and neither bird nor reptile nor weird experimental mammal placed it there. 

He picks it up tentatively, and isn’t it sad that his lifestyle has made him so suspicious of an innocent plastic Easter egg? 

He cracks it open to find a grenade. 

In the next instant he’s off the civilian-riddled street and on the roof of a nearby building, heart thudding furiously in his chest. He fumbles with the device, hands shaking slightly, and finds, to his great relief and slight confusion, that the grenade doesn’t appear to have been activated in any way. He webs it five times to a structurally unimportant part of the roof just in case. 

He swings back down to land on a lightpost next to where he found it. To his dawning horror, he spots pastel colors dotted all down the street, stuck in the windshields of cars, balanced in the windows of businesses, and lying on the ground beneath trees and street lamps. 

“Mommy, Mommy, look! The Easter Bunny came early! See? There’s an egg!” 

Peter freezes, then twists on his perch, honing in on the voice. There’s a little girl with red pigtails bouncing up and down excitedly beside her mother, a yellow egg clutched in her small hand. 

“No!” Peter yelps, flinging himself off the post and towards the girl. “No, no no no no, don’t touch that!” He yanks it out of her hand, backing away quickly. She stares up at him in shock. Tears fill her eyes, and her face scrunches up. “Oh, no no, don’t cry, it’s okay,” he says hastily, cupping his hands between her and the egg. “You just don’t want this egg is all, it’s full of…” he cracks it open, and stares. “...vegetables. It’s full of vegetables.” He does his best to hide the packet of M&M’s within his hand. 

Her face lights up. “I like vegetables!” she chirps.

“Of course you do,” Peter mumbles. “I mean.. of course you do! Vegetables are awesome and you should eat them all the time, but, uh, not these ones, okay? They’re all...uh, mushy and gross.” 

He spots a blue egg in the window of the salon behind them, and he lunges over to snatch it. This one appears to contain a AAA battery. He looks back up at the girl and her mother, who are watching him in confusion and alarm, respectively. “Just...uh, don’t pick up anymore Easter eggs, okay? Ask your mom to buy you some broccoli or something,” he backs away down the sidewalk, pointing at the mom. “Buy your kid some veggies! Don’t let her touch any strange eggs!” 

He fashions himself a web bag, and sets off on an egg hunt. 

Within a few minutes, he has a collection of twenty-three plastic Easter eggs of various sizes and colors in the bag. Their contents range from candy, to coins, to what seems to be the entire contents of someone’s junk drawer. Several contain five and ten dollar bills. One has a hundred dollar bill, and he takes careful note of every one that has money in it, just on the off chance that they _aren’t_ somehow rigged to explode or poison him or turn into a robot that will cut his nose off while he sleeps. 

The trail stops at the opening of an alley. In the middle of the alley is a black-and-red-clad figure with pink bunny ears, skipping cheerfully away.

“Here comes Pe-ter Cotton-Tail,” he sings brightly, a large basket swinging from his arm.

“Hey!” Peter calls after him. 

Without missing a beat, he spins gracefully on his toes, and Peter abruptly has a gun pointed at his forehead. “Shoo-ting you in the fuck-ing skull!” He finishes to the same tune. 

Peter yanks the gun out of his hand with a strand of webbing before the last note has even died off. The other man barely seems to notice. He claps gloved hands against his cheeks, staring at him with the comically large white eyes on his mask. 

“Oh Em Gee, you’re Spider-Man!” He squeals. 

Peter looks at the gun now in his hand, wrinkling his nose in distaste, and then back up at the other red-and-black suited person in the alley, a growing suspicion as to his identity forming. “You wouldn’t happen to be Deadpool by any chance, would you?” 

Deadpool makes a sound like a tea kettle with some sort of factory error, and bounces up and down on the balls of his feet. “ _He knows our name!_ ” he squeaks. He freezes. “Wait. Did you just happen to know it, or do you have psychic powers in this universe? _Did you see it in my mind?_ ”

Peter blinks. “No. I saw it in an Avengers briefing.”

Deadpool nods thoughtfully. “That’s not _as_ cool, but still, adorable that they talk about me when I’m not around.” 

“They said you’re an unstable menace and I should ‘take extreme caution and not approach unless absolutely necessary’,” he says, mimicking the Captain’s lecture voice.

“Ooh, a _menace_ , huh?” Deadpool repeats in a high-pitched voice. “So what exactly brings you to approach lil ol’ menacing me today?”

Peter raises an eyebrow under his mask. “Seriously?” he holds up a plastic egg. “I’ve got like fifty of these. Easter isn’t even for another two weeks, man.”

“Aw, someone doesn’t have much Easter spirit!” 

“You could’ve blown someone up!” 

He cocks his head, looking genuinely bemused. “Sounds fun, but that’s really more of a Valentines’ Day sort of celebration, Baby Boy.” 

“Then why leave an egg with a grenade in it lying in the street?”

Deadpool does a double take, feeling for his belt. “I did _no such_ \- oh.” he pulls a half-melted Hershey’s chocolate belt and two grenades out of a pouch. “Well that’s not right.” 

“Okay. I’m confiscating your basket. Hand it over.”

He narrows his eyes, clutching his basket tighter. “You know I can just buy more Easter eggs.” 

“And I can just confiscate those too. I’ve got a collection going.”

“Fine!” Deadpool huffs, shoving the basket at him. 

Peter takes it gingerly, wary of more explosives. “Appreciate the cooperation.”

“So is Easter Grinch your usual job, or is this just a night job? Because the outfit definitely screams ‘night job’, and that is _not_ an insult, baby boy.” 

“First of all, it’s day, as you can tell from the giant ball of fire in the sky. Second, I don’t get paid for this, and third, this is the first time I’ve ever had to steal Easter eggs from anyone, so congrats on being unique,” Peter says, busy checking the eggs in the basket. Deciding that there’s nothing rigged to explode, he attaches a line of web to the roof above them, landing neatly on the edge. 

“Hey, you know if you ever need money, I’ve got some ideas for things I could pay you for!” Deadpool shouts up at him. 

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that!” Peter calls back. “Besides, you couldn’t afford me!” 

He’s gone before he hears if there’s a response. 

… 

The next time he sees Deadpool is in the beginning of May, and this time it’s not even Deadpool’s fault. It’s the guy’s who thought it would be funny to release approximately fifty bajillion weird fuzzy caterpillar things the size of cats around the city. 

As far as supervillain schemes goes, it’s really more on the ‘inconvenience’ side of things, rather than the ‘what kind of person does this shit’, so that makes it a pretty good day in Peter’s book. The Avengers are even here! Which probably just means they happened to have nothing better to do, but still. 

Peter has three of the squirmy bundles of white fluff in his arms, and is busy trying to fish a fourth out from under a car when a pair of red-and-black booted feet appear in front of him. He looks up from where he’s laying on his stomach to see the merc watching him, head cocked, stroking a large caterpillar that’s curled comfortably in his arms. 

“That looks uncomfortable,” he says cheerilly. 

“How observant,” Peter snaps. “Want to help me out here?” 

“Ooo, Baby Boy, there’s all _sorts_ of things I’d be willing to help you out with,” he wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully. 

“Like getting a giant bug out from under this car?” he asks, deciding the best way to deal with the innuendo was just to ignore it. 

“Mm. Kinky.” Deadpool kneels down beside him. “Why don’t you just use your webbing to pull it out?” 

Peter readjusts his grip on the three he’s holding, tugging one back from where it’s trying to crawl over his shoulder. He shuffles around to the other side of the car. “It sticks to their fur. Hair? I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t have time to cut it free and I don’t want to hurt them by just yanking it off.” With a quick lunge, he finally manages to grab the bug before it can inch away from him. “Nevermind, got it.” He stands, tucking the new addition into his armful of fluff. He nods with his chin towards the one in Deadpool’s arms. “Here, give me that one, I’ll take them to where we’re rounding the others up.”

Deadpool narrows his eyes, hugging it protectively to his chest. “Excuse you, ‘that one’ has a name. Her name is Beatrice, and I’ll have you know she is a _purebred_!” He says haughtily. 

Peter raises an eyebrow. “A purebred _what?_ ”

Deadpool looks at Beatrice in silence for a second. “Bug,” he declares, with a confident nod. 

Peter firmly resists the urge to be at all amused. “I mean. You’re probably right.”

“Hey, Spidey!” a voice calls behind him. He turns to find Hawkeye, staring warily past him at Deadpool, one hand on his bow. “You okay?” 

Peter stares at him, puzzled. “What else would I be? They’re caterpillars, Clint, they don’t even bite.” 

Clint’s eyes dart to Peter with that look he always gives him, which means ‘now is not the time for your bullshit, kid’, which is just plain _insulting._ Seriously, he’s fought with the Avengers before, are they really going to get all fussy about some harmless little _bugs?_ He’s Spider-Man, for God’s sake. They should be his _specialty._

He’s just beginning to work himself into serious irritation when Deadpool speaks up cheerfully behind him. “Nah, I don’t think it’s the fuzzy-wuzzy bugs he’s worried about. Or at least, not the miniature ones.” 

Peter turns back to ask what he’s talking about, and finally picks up on the edge under his cheerful tone. 

Ah. Right. The deadly merc with a mouth. Who he was warned not to interact with.  
Clint steps forward, hand tightening slightly on his bow, and beckons Peter forward, as though he’s a small child who’s wandered too close to the tiger cage at the zoo. “Come on, SHIELD’s pretty much got this under control.” 

Peter looks at Deadpool, who’s standing stiffly, still clutching Beatrice. The moment he notices Peter watching him, he appears to relax. Appears. Peter knows what calculated relaxation looks like. 

“Aw man, I would _love_ to come with you guys, but my evening is completely _booked_ right now.” He saunters casually backwards, towards the entrance of a nearby alley. “But you fellas enjoy the after party! I know, I know, it’s not as much fun without me, but you’ll survive.” And with that, he’s gone, without giving either Peter or Clint a chance to respond. 

Clint sets off down the street towards the containment cage SHIELD set up, and Peter hurriedly falls into step beside him. “He wasn’t actually _doing_ anything, just being...weird,” he tells Clint, not entirely sure why he’s defending Deadpool to him, for some reason feeling he should. 

Clint stops abruptly, and Peter almost stumbles in surprise. He looks Peter in the eye, as best he can through the mask. “Look kid, you’ve got a good heart, it’s what makes you a good hero. But Deadpool? He doesn’t. He’ll kill you the second someone pays him enough to cover the cost of the bullet, and he won’t think twice about it. He might not be a villain you need to fight, but he’s damn well not someone you should be spending time with,” he says firmly. 

Peter fidgets, adjusting the caterpillars in his arms. “What are you, my dad?” he mumbles. 

Clint grins, the tension broken. “Don’t let Stark hear you say that.” 

Peter laughs, and they start off again, their conversation reverting back to its usual casual chatter. 

But something keeps niggling at the back of his mind. 

For all the warnings people keep giving him, his spidey sense never so much as hummed around the merc, not once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, thanks for reading the first chapter! This one should update pretty quickly. I know where I'm going with this. 
> 
> A couple notes:
> 
> Peter is 20ish in this fic.  
> I borrowed the idea of Peter watching the birds in the city from the lovely fic 'I Like Birds', by chinashopbull, which I would link to if I could figure out how to link things in the end notes. You should look it up anyway. 
> 
> Criticism is welcome and encouraged, and any comments at all are treasured as dearly as if they're going to pay for college. Feel free to offer suggestions! I know where this is going, but I'm happy to hear your ideas. 
> 
> Hope you like it!


	2. Summer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to my lovely beta Cinco for this chapter!

Slowly, the days grow warmer. Summer bleeds into spring, replacing it in fragments. 

Peter follows the Avengers’ warnings about Deadpool, for the most part, though the merc doesn’t make it easy for him. He sees him more often than ever before, the other red-suited man popping up about once a week in one alley or rooftop or another. He wonders if the mercenary is spending more time in the city than he used to. Maybe he’s been taking local jobs lately.

Peter doesn’t like to think too much about that. 

When they do run into each other, he just does his best to disengage and get away as quickly and politely as he can. He likes to think he does a pretty good job of staying away without hurting Deadpool’s feelings. 

The first week of June finds Peter hiding in one of the islands of shade created by the storefronts, in the midst of one of the worst heat waves in living memory. The air is as thick and hot as soup, even here, but it’s marginally better than the stove-top asphalt and concrete in the sun. Some have packed themselves into the little air conditioned grocery store behind him. He’d love to join them, but he’s _technically_ on patrol, which today means wandering through the oven-hot streets doing his best to project a "dude, don’t even try it today" attitude towards any potential criminals. Maybe it’s the attitude (or, more likely, they just don’t feel like doing anything either), but it’s been a slow day. Peter leans against a pole, watching the shimmer of heat coming off the street. 

“If you need a break, don’t sit on the pavement. You’ll burn that cute little butt of yours right off, and that would just be a tragedy.”

Peter doesn’t need to turn around. “Hey, Deadpool. How’s life?”

“Pretty lifelike.” He steps forward to stand next to Peter. “Man, beautiful day, huh? The kind of day where you can really smell the dead bodies in the dumpsters.” 

Peter scrunches his nose in disgust. “Dude, you don’t need to _say_ things like - what in God’s name are you wearing?” he says, finally catching sight of Deadpool out of his periphery. 

Deadpool cocks his head. “I shouldn’t say things like ‘what in God’s name are you wearing?’” he parrots back. “So I don’t get to ask you what drives you to wear a bug suit in public? That topic is off-limits? Good to know, that could have been an awkward conversation.”

“What? No, I’m asking about _you_ , what in God’s name are _you_ wearing?”

“You like?” the other man strikes a pose, showing off the bright yellow sundress he’s got on over the suit. “I got it on sale!”

It’s...cute, actually. The cheerful yellow fabric swirls when he moves, swishing about his knees. “Yeah, uh, I like it,” Peter answers honestly. “How can you stand to have another layer on right now, though?” 

“Sometimes, my little spiderling, you’ve gotta sacrifice comfort for style,” he says wisely. “But seriously, does this mean I _can_ ask about the bug suit? Because I’m legit dying to know.”

“First of all, spiders aren’t bugs. Quit calling it a bug suit.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to _offend_ -”

“Shush. And it’s because I got bit by one.”

Deadpool leans against the next pole, mirroring Peter’s position. “So, you got bitten by a spider, and that was a dramatic enough event in your life to inspire you to dress up in a spider-themed costume and go out and fight crime. Weird leap of logic, but who am I to judge?”

Peter rolls his eyes beneath the mask. “It was a radioactive spider, it’s how I got my powers.”

“Ooh, nifty, so you _do_ have powers. I thought maybe it was all just tech.”

Peter blinks in surprise. “Why did you think that?”

Deadpool shrugs, still looking remarkably comfy and at ease in the sweltering heat. “I saw you’ve got the little web-thingies on your wrists. Plus, you seem like the smart type.” 

“Oh. Thanks?” he says, surprised and a little flattered. Then, he narrows his eyes suspiciously. “Wait, was that just a nice way of calling me a nerd?”

“Baby boy, I _never_ say things the nice way.” 

Before he can answer, Peter hears the sharp crack of a gunshot several blocks away. His whips around, triangulating. “This way!” he barks at Deadpool without thinking, already heading for the roofs. He doesn’t wait to see if he follows. 

He’s there in under a minute. It’s a convenience store, a man inside with a gun and a ski mask holding it up the way he’s seen a hundred times before. The robber doesn’t notice him come in. 

“Move faster!” he shouts at the badly shaking teenage clerk, who’s struggling to get all the money out of the till quickly. 

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you to say please?” 

The next second, the gun is on Peter, and a half second after that, it’s been fired. Peter has to leap nearly across the whole store, a stream of bullets trailing him, striking shelves and walls indiscriminately. He shoots back a glob of webbing in midair, pinning the robber’s arm back against the side of the counter. The gun clatters to the ground. 

“Yeah, you should ask your mom about it sometime, it’s a really nice word to know.” Peter peers over the struggling man. “Sir? Are you okay?” he calls to the wide-eyed cashier, now cowering behind the counter. 

The boy nods jerkily, still looking shell-shocked. He points past Peter. “Sh-she-I think she’s hurt,” he stammers out, and suddenly Peter’s stomach seems to drop right down to his knees, because he hears her ragged gasps behind him, and he realizes his mistake. 

He hadn’t noticed any bystanders when he'd come in. 

She’s slumped in front of the refrigerated shelves in a pile of crystalline broken glass stained bright with scarlet blood and vivid green and blue gatorade, one hand pressed against the wound in her leg. She looks up at him as he approaches, face terrified. She can’t be much older than fifteen. 

“Hey,” he says, and it comes out as a croak. He clears his throat and tries again. “Hey, it’s going to be okay, you’re going to be fine. Hey, call 911, tell them we need an ambulance!” He calls to the cashier, barely registering that the boy already has his phone to his ear. 

Her face is pale and she’s shivering violently, clearly in shock. He kneels down, glass crunching beneath him, and tries to keep his voice calm and unconcerned. “Hey there! Listen, I’m going to put pressure on your leg, okay? It might hurt a bit, but the ambulance is on its way, and you’re going to be totally okay,” he says, carefully replacing her hands with his own. 

She jerks when he presses down, letting out a pained squeak. 

“I know, I know!” he says quickly. “Don’t think about it, focus on something else. What’s your name?” 

“Alice,” she says raggedly, her breathing too quick. “Alice Henderson.”

“Hi Alice, nice to meet you! I’m Pete.” 

“Pete? My brother’s name is Pete.” 

The glass doors at the front of the store swing open, and Deadpool finally jogs in. “Sorry, you know next time knowing a _destination_ would be nice - oh, shit.” 

“Deadpool, I need you to take care of the guy webbed to the counter. Find some way to restrain him before the webbing wears off.” Peter instructs, not looking up from the wound still gushing blood beneath his fingers. 

“What guy webbed to the counter?” 

“ _Shit,_ ” he hisses, finally looking up to see nothing but the tattered remains of his web fluid, holding nothing. “You need to follow him!” 

“On it,” Deadpool says grimly, spinning on his heel and marching out the door without any of his usual flair. 

Peter looks back down at Alice. “So, you’ve got a brother named Pete, huh? Small world. How old is he?”

“Ten,” she breathes. Her skin has grown alarmingly pale. 

“Ten? That’s fun. Do you guys get along?”

“Most of the time. He...he wanted a soda, and we were out, that’s why I was here…” She starts to cry and it’s almost no change at all, her expression glassy and unchanged even as the tears start to fall. 

Peter presses down a little harder on her leg, his alarm growing when she doesn’t react this time. To his relief, he can hear sirens approaching. “Hey hey, stay with me Alice! Listen, do you hear the sirens? They’re coming. You’re going to be okay.”

… 

They load her into the ambulance, and he stays long enough to give the paramedics a run-down of what happened, though he doubts it’s any help to them. He heads off before the cops arrive. What he’d _like_ to do now is try and track down the robber, but he knows that would be pointless by now. He doubts Deadpool had any luck, though he’s unsure how to track the man down to check. 

He settles instead for a spot on one of his favorite roofs, now sheltered from the sun as evening arrives. Only then does he check his phone. 

He has seven missed calls from Tony, two from Clint, and, most recently, a single one from Natasha. He groans.

This is really not something he wants to deal with right now, but he knows if he tries to avoid them he’s just going to end up getting a direct visit from one of Tony’s suits, if not the man himself. He hits return call. 

Tony picks up on the second ring. “Kid, what the hell happened?” 

Yep. “It was stupid. Some guy was holding up the store, and I didn’t notice there was a girl hiding behind one of the shelves and when he tried to shoot me he hit her instead,” he mumbles. “He got away.”

“How’d the hell did he get away?”

“I was busy trying to help Alice!” he snaps, but his defensiveness drains away as quickly as it comes. “So... I guess I didn’t web him up well enough.” There’s nothing to defend. It _was_ his fault. 

He hears Tony sigh on the other end. “Alright kid, alright. These things happen. At least no one died. The girl’s going to be okay, by the way. Alice? The doctors are still working on her leg, but she’s going to make it.” 

Peter feels that particular loop of anxiety unwrap itself from around his chest, relief flooding through him. “Good. That...that’s great, I’m happy to hear that.”

“How about you? Crap, I probably should’ve asked that first. Are you hurt?”

“Nah, I’m okay. He didn’t hit _me_ ,” he says bitterly. 

“Seriously, don’t beat yourself up about it. It could’ve been a lot worse.”

This doesn’t comfort him at all, but he nods anyway, forgetting briefly that the other man can’t see him. “Yeah,” he says. 

“Look, why don’t you come by the tower tonight for dinner? Camp out, watch a movie with the team. I think tonight’s feature is The Goonies, which Cap has tragically not seen.”

“Um, yeah, that sounds really nice, Mr. Stark, but actually Aunt May and I were gonna go try this new thai place that opened up a couple weeks ago.” It’s a lie, Aunt May is working tonight, and besides, they went to the new thai place three days ago and it wasn’t very good. 

He can hear that Tony doesn’t believe him when he answers, but thankfully he doesn’t call him out on it for once. “Uh huh. Well, if your plans change, feel free to swing by. Sam’s cooking.” 

“Thanks, Mr. Stark.” He does his best to push his genuine gratitude into his voice. “Really, it’s nice of you to invite me.” 

“You’re always invited, and don’t you forget it,” Tony returns, his tone a little more gentle than usual. “Take care of yourself, kid.” The line disconnects with a click. 

Almost as soon as the call ends, Peter finds himself wishing he hadn’t made up an excuse. He didn’t really have any plans for after he finished patrol today. He doesn’t at all feel like going back to his own tiny, empty apartment. What he really feels like is curling up on the couch with Aunt May and making fun of infomercials, but she won’t even be off work until three in the morning. 

Patrol until he’s too exhausted to think it is, then. 

… 

Deadpool catches up with him several hours a later, which Peter didn’t realize he was expecting until he looks down off the edge of the roof to see him waving frantically up at him from the sidewalk, still in his yellow sundress, and he realizes he isn’t the slightest bit surprised. He pulls him up with a line of webbing rather than make his way down to the street. 

“Hola, mi araña pequeña! Why the long face?” he says cheerfully once he’s up. 

Peter is not in the mood. “It’s a mask. What do you want, Deadpool?” 

“Yeah okay, that’s fair.” Deadpool says, dropping the act surprisingly quickly. “So, bad news, I lost the guy who shot up the store. Good news,” he holds up a brown paper bag. “I got the guy’s gun, and I can totally track him down if you want me to.” 

“ _What?!_ ” 

Peter grabs for the bag, but Deadpool snatches it back. “Nuh-uh, see, if you take the gun I can’t go after him, that’s how this works.”

Peter is faster, and this time he gets it, ignoring Deadpool’s startled yelp. Sure enough, there’s the gun, lying innocently at the bottom of the bag. 

He stares at it. “How did you get this?” 

“Wasn’t hard, it was just lying on the floor, so I picked it up,” he says, shrugging. 

He looks up at the merc, eyes wide behind his mask. “Why didn’t you give it to the police?”

Deadpool fixes him with a level stare. “Is that really what you want me to do?”  
Peter opens his mouth, the words _of course_ on the tip of his tongue, but then he hesitates. 

He knows what the police are like. He knows how overworked they are, how far down the list of priorities some drug store robber is. He knows that even with the gun, there’s a solid chance that the man will never be brought to justice. 

He thinks about Alice. 

“You can’t kill him,” is what he ends up saying. “When you find him, you have to take him to the police and let them deal with him. You can’t kill him.” And he gives him back the bag. 

Deadpool grins at him, and even through the mask, he can tell it’s sharper than his usual smile. “Your wish is my command. And if you change your mind, you just let me know.”

“I won’t.” 

“I know. You heroes, such goody two-shoes.” 

“Oh sure, pretend you’re not good too,” he says, wondering even as he says the words if it’s a bad thing that he’s starting to believe them. 

Deadpool looks startled, the eyes on his mask widening. “How dare you insult me so?” he recovers, putting a hand against his chest in mock offense, but the words don’t quite hit with the humor he’s trying for, like he’s been knocked a tiny bit off-kilter. 

He just laughs awkwardly in response, not sure where to go from here. Both of them stand in silence for a moment. 

Peter is the one to break it. “Thank you. Seriously,” he says, sincerity in every word.

“Eh, anytime, spidey boy. It’s good to work for free once in a while.” He steps back casually, heading towards the fire escape. “And speaking of which, I’m going to go get on this while he’s still nice and paranoid.” 

Peter just nods. He’s a little tempted to ask the merc to stay for awhile, but dismisses the thought. Clint would kill him. 

“Remember, no killing!” Peter calls down the fire escape after him. 

“Only in my dreams, Honey Bunches of Bugs!” He curtsies before taking off down the alley and out of sight. 

Peter, meanwhile, ponders just how bad of a decision he’s just made by enlisting the mercenary’s help. It’s definitely the sort of move that would make any one of the Avengers flip their shit. 

But then again, they don’t need to know. 

He goes home after that. To his relief, he doesn’t end up tossing and turning all night the way he’d originally feared. He’s asleep almost as soon as his body hits the mattress. He does not dream.

… 

He wakes up the next morning to find a text from Tony on his phone. 

_They caught the guy from the convenience store,_ it says.

He smiles at his phone, and goes to get himself a cup of coffee. 

… 

They didn’t formally arrange it, but on a hunch Peter goes back to the same roof the next evening, once the sun has partially set and the midday glaring heat has somewhat passed. 

Sure enough, he only has to wait about twenty minutes before Deadpool’s head pops over the edge of the fire escape. 

“Oh good, you _are_ here. I thought I was just going to be sitting around on a roof like an idiot,” he calls, clambering up the rest of the way. 

“Yeah, well, apparently I owe you a thank you,” Peter says, grinning. 

“Eh, you don’t owe me squat,” he shrugs it off, turning more solemn as he perches next to Peter on the edge of the roof. “How’s the girl?”

“She’s going to be okay. Probably need a bunch of physical therapy, but she’ll make it.” He looks down, kicking his heels against the brick of the side of the building. 

Deadpool nudges him with a shoulder. “You did good. Probably saved her life by staying with her.”

“Sure, after she got shot because I didn’t check to see if there was anyone else in the store,” Peter rebukes. 

“If you blame yourself for everything that goes wrong, you’re just going to wind up sticking a shotgun in your mouth, baby boy,” he responds, too cheerfully for his words.

“ _How?_ How do I just brush past the fact that some teenage girl got shot because I messed up?” he snaps bitterly. 

Deadpool seems to contemplate that for a long minute. “Tacos,” he finally says decidedly. 

Peter blinks at him. “Tacos?” 

“Tacos!” Deadpool bounds to his feet, offering Peter a hand. “C’mon, I’ll take you to my favorite stand, we’ll call it a thank you present for my amazing detective skills!” 

“I don’t have any money,” he protests, taking his hand anyway. 

“Your presence is all that’s needed, Snuggle Bug!” 

Ten minutes later, they’re seated on top of a completely different building with what is probably one of the best tacos Peter has had in his life. And he’s had _Sam’s_ tacos. 

“This is one of the best things I’ve ever had in my mouth,” Peter moans around a mouthful of ground beef. 

“I betcha I can top it,” Deadpool waggles his eyebrows suggestively. He’s got his mask pulled up to his nose to eat, and Peter can see the scars that warp his skin. Peter knew they existed from the file SHIELD made him look over in case he ever became a threat, but this is the first time he’s actually seen them. 

“Shut up and let me enjoy my taco, you perv,” he says, snickering anyway. 

“How about questions? Am I allowed to ask questions?” 

“Sure,” he says neutrally. “I’m not promising to answer any.”

Deadpool looks far too thrilled, practically vibrating with excitement. “ _Yes!_ Okay okay, what to ask first, what to ask… _no_ I’m not starting with that, I want him to keep talking to me!” he argues with seemingly nobody. 

Peter decides not to ask. 

“How about...ooh, what’s your favorite color?” 

“Blue,” he answers immediately. “Is yours red?”

He seems mildly offended. “No! Pink is by far the superior color! Why would you guess red?” 

“Because…” he waves vaguely at the other man’s suit. “You wear a lot of it.” ‘

“Oh, that’s just so you can’t see the bloodstains,” he grins wolfishly. “Why did _you_ go with red?” 

Peter shrugs, a little embarrassed. “When I first made the suit I happened to have a red hoodie, so I used that so I wouldn’t have to buy more fabric or anything.” 

“Daddy Stark couldn’t buy you a different colored hoodie?” he asks, raising an eyebrow. 

“Nah man, that was before I even _met_ Tony, back when I was living with my aunt.” It occurs to him that maybe he shouldn’t give away details like that about his identity, but...Deadpool hasn’t been much of a threat so far. He shrugs it off. “We didn’t have a ton of money back then, and besides she’d have been curious if I suddenly started asking for a bunch of new stuff. So,” he waves a hand at himself, “red it was. Then when Mr. Stark made me my first proper suit he sorta modeled it off the old one, so I kept the colors.” He takes another bite of his taco, already mourning the fact that it’s nearly gone. “I like it, though. Plus, I mean, people recognize it. They _trust_ it, you know? Spider-Man is sort of his own thing even without me in the suit.” He snorts. “Plus, it’s a lot easier to get anything done when people trust you. I can’t tell you how many people tried to punch me or hit me with a tire iron or something _while I was trying to help them_ when I first got started.”

Deadpool laughs. “You don’t need to tell me. The only time people trust _me_ on sight is when they mistake me for you!”

“Well, trust takes time to build,” Peter responds, almost absently, an idea slowly forming. 

Deadpool carries on, unaware. “I’ve actually been mistaken for you a bunch of times, which, personally, I take as a compliment. Also, don’t worry, I never kill people or anything if there’s little kids or something nearby who might be confused about who’s doing the killing - not that I would kill someone in front of a kid anyway. I may be an asshole, but that’s some _villain_ shit right there-”

“You wanna come on patrol with me tonight?” Peter blurts out.

That stops Deadpool in his tracks. He gapes at Peter, mouth open and taco forgotten. Finally, he shuts his mouth and swallows audibly. “Come on patrol with you?” he croaks. 

“Yeah. Yeah!” he says, trying to sound confident. “Why not? It’ll be fun.” He shrugs. “I don’t know. It was kind of nice having someone there with me at the convenience store. Usually I have to do everything myself, so it was nice to have some backup.” He looks up at Deadpool, who’s still staring at him in shock. “I mean, if you don’t want to...” he says hurriedly. 

“I WANT TO!” Deadpool immediately bellows, so loudly that Peter cringes away in fear for his eardrums. “Sorry!” he quickly says, still at much louder than conversational volume. “But yeah! Yeah, I would love to!”

“Yeah, I got that,” he says dryly. 

Suddenly, Deadpool’s eyes narrow, the wonderment dropping off his face in an instant. He leans forward intently, his face now only inches from Peter’s own, and Peter almost stops breathing. He appears to study him for several long, long seconds, Peter’s alarm steadily growing. 

Then he reaches out, and very delicately flicks Peter’s forehead.

“Ow!” he yelps, more out of surprise than actual pain. “What - ?”

“I don’t know,” Deadpool mumbles, apparently to the air. “I’ve never tried to flick a hallucination before. Hey, are you a hallucination?” 

Peter blinks. “Are...are you talking to me now?”

“Obviously.”

“...No?”

“Good enough for me!” Deadpool crows, bounding to his feet. “Let’s go kick some criminal ass! C’mon, hurry up!”

“Whoa whoa whoa, wait a moment. There’s rules.” Peter plants his feet firmly and waits for Deadpool to stop moving. 

“Rules?” he whines. “Do there have to be?”

“Yes. First of all,” he holds up a finger. “No killing. That should not come as a surprise.” 

Deadpool raises his hand. 

“Second of all, no maiming,” Peter says quickly. 

Deadpool lowers his hand. 

“In fact, no more bodily harm than is absolutely necessary to either protect bystanders or to restrain someone committing a crime. Third, you have to listen to me,” he tells him sternly. “If you decide to just do your own thing, I’m ditching you. The newspapers don’t need any more excuses to hate me.”

Deadpool nods vigorously. 

“And finally,” he sighs deeply. “It won’t come up, but if it ever does, don’t tell the Avengers. They get weird and...protective.”

“Is ‘protective’ code for murdery?” 

“Possibly.”

“Aww. That’s cute.” 

“So? Will you follow the rules?”

“Cross my heart and swear on my grave, spidey bug!” he says sincerely, making a gesture that might be an X across his chest. He then promptly turns and leaps onto the fire escape. “So? Come on!”

“Slow down or I’ll give you a grave to swear on!” Peter shouts down after him. “You don’t even know where we’re going!” 

“Eh, I’ll figure it out!” he shouts back. “Race you there!” 

… 

Later, Wade will swear that technically, Peter couldn’t have won, because while Peter may have reached a crime first (a mugging with what turned out to be a butter knife, which was resolved in a record-setting twenty seconds), Wade was _actually_ racing him to the nearby dumpster, which he touched first. So ha. 

Peter lets him have that one. He’ll beat him next time. 

And, strangely, there _is_ a next time. And a time after that. And a time after that. 

Sometimes they get food, eating on the rooftops (Wade knows all the best food trucks, and, because of the many nights spent eating takeout in the tower with the team, Peter knows all the best takeout places. He now also knows which ones take a significant dip in quality when they’re being picked up by Peter Parker, rather than delivered to Stark Tower). 

The rest of the time, when they’re not eating, they actually do fight crime. And, Deadpool does a pretty good job of following his rules! He hasn’t killed even one person, and he only sort-of maimed one guy (a would-be rapist who honestly deserved the sword through the leg that he got. Peter didn’t even try to stop Wade on that one). 

So, it’s going okay! It’s actually really nice to have a superhero friend, it turns out. Yeah, he has the Avengers, but they’re more the lecturey-parent-type friends. It’s nice to have a friend who’s more of an equal. 

Everything goes great right up until Deadpool gets blown up, which, in retrospect, was really only a matter of time. 

They’re at a mall in the middle of the night on a tip from someone who Deadpool knows (and probably threatened to get the information, but hey), crouched behind a railing on the upper floor where they can see the major entrances and exits. 

As Deadpool had excitedly explained when they met up that evening, “So supposedly there’s this big vault thing where they keep some of the bigger merchandise and valuable crap so that no one can steal it if they break in. But see, here’s the ironic part: _that’s the place these guys are going to break into! _” he told him, sounding completely delighted by the whole thing. “So? Huh? We gonna check it out? We gonna fight some bad guys? Stop some crime?”__

__“Yes, yes, we’ll check it out. Good job finding out about it before it happened,” Peter assured him._ _

__Deadpool had beamed._ _

__So, now they’re waiting, whispering to each other from their perch._ _

__“Yeah, chainsaws _look_ awesome, but they’re not actually very efficient weapons, they jam super easily!” Peter argues in a hushed voice. _ _

__“Okay, but you can still kill a zombie with a jammed chainsaw. You’re just being defeatist.”_ _

__“I am _not_ being defeatist! I’m just saying use a machete or something!” _ _

__“Well _obviously_ I’m going to do that, I carry katanas, Baby Boy! They’re like my signature thing, c’mon!”_ _

__“ _Keep your voice down_ \- then why are we even arguing about chainsaws? _You’re_ the one who was defending - wait. I hear something.” _ _

__They both hunch down slightly, falling silent as they watch the dark figures on the other side of the glass entrance._ _

__One of the shadows is bent over, doing something to the door handles. There’s the sound of metal clinking, and the doors swing open. Both of the thieves wait, standing outside, for several long seconds. Finally, when there’s no alarm they hurry through, closing the doors behind them._ _

__Peter taps Wade on the shoulder and points him towards the still escalators, giving him a slight push._ _

__Deadpool nods quickly and moves stealthily towards the steps, keeping his head below the railing. He stands fully when he reaches the top. “Well, someone’s being naughty!”_ _

__Peter takes his cue, darting along the balcony in the opposite direction as the men spin around and draw their guns on Wade. He launches off the edge behind them._ _

__“What the fuck- ?” Bad Guy number one has time to say, before Peter pins him to the ground._ _

__The other man looks at Peter, at his trapped partner, and Peter’s spidey-sense buzzes. He reaches into the bag he carries, takes something out, and flings it towards them._ _

__It’s a grenade._ _

___Why do we always end up here?_ Peter has time to wonder, already moving to shield the man he’s restraining as best he can. _ _

__“Heads up!” There’s rush of air from above, and Deadpool belly flops on top of the grenade from the upper floor with a crunch of broken bones._ _

__“ _Wade, wait-!”_ _ _

__There’s a bang like a gun going off, only slightly muffled, and Peter is showered in an explosion of blood and bits of flesh._ _

__He’s frozen, locked in place, blinking through the red-stained lenses of the suit for one second, then two. Deadpool’s mangled body doesn’t so much as twitch._ _

__The would-be thief beneath him groans, snapping him out of it. “Are you hurt?” he chokes out. The man shakes his head, face pressed into the floor. Peter doesn’t ask any follow up questions, just webs the guy’s limbs to the floor as efficiently as possible, ignoring the tremor in his hands._ _

__He moves to Deadpool’s side, feeling the blood stick to his skin as he moves. Gingerly, he picks up a limp wrist, avoiding looking at the ruined torso as much as he can, and swallows hard when he feels no pulse._ _

__“Are you kidding me? He blew up, man, look at him!” the robber calls over from the floor._ _

__“Shut up!” Peter snaps. _He’s fine he’s fine he’s fine he just needs time to heal he’s fine,_ he chants mentally. _ _

__He can hear sirens coming closer. Someone must have heard something, which is good, because he’s really in no mood to have to call the police right now._ _

__Carefully, he gathers up the destroyed body. He feels the ribcage fold unnaturally in his arms and has to turn his face away, gasping deeply through his mask to keep from throwing up. It doesn’t help much. He can still taste the blood in the air._ _

__He manages to get him up to the rooftop of a building close by. He places the body _(not the body, that’s **Wade** )_ in the center of the roof. Then, he makes his way to the edge of the building and sits facing out towards the city. He breathes in the warm summer air, and begins to count. _ _

__He’s at 157 before Deadpool begins to gurgle._ _

__Taking one last deep breath, he turns back to the now-shifting body._ _

__Deadpool blinks up at him. “I don’t remember what happened, but it doesn’t feel like fun times.”_ _

__“You got blown up,” Peter says bluntly._ _

__“Sounds about right.” Wade pokes at his still pretty shredded torso._ _

__Peter crosses his arms. “You got blown up because you jumped off a balcony and landed on a grenade.”_ _

__Wade squints. “One of the weirder ways I’ve committed suicide, but still sounds about right.”_ _

__“So that I wouldn’t get blown up.”_ _

__“...Oh.”_ _

__Peter huffs, kneeling down beside him, and if it’s because his legs are feeling a little weak right now, no one but him has to know. “I have a new rule,” he says fiercely. “Never ever do that again.”_ _

__Wade grins at him from under his mask. “I’ll make _you_ a deal, baby boy. Stay away from anything explosive and I won’t.”_ _

__“Deal.”_ _

__“I’d shake on it, but, well -” he lifts up an arm bent in the middle, the fingers clearly crushed._ _

__Peter grimaces. “Yeah, about that. Is there somewhere safe near here I can take you while you finish healing?”_ _

__Wade looks around, taking in the surrounding skyline. “Yeah, my apartment should be just a few blocks from here.”_ _

__It’s not a very pleasant trip. Peter has to carry Wade slung across his back, bleeding into the back of his suit now instead of just the front. And they have to stop once after Wade informs him from his spot on said back that his leg is literally about to fall off._ _

__“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Peter mutters as he webs the leg back in place. “This is a literal nightmare, oh my god.”_ _

__“Aw, c’mon Spidey, I died for your sins, remember?”_ _

__“We’re not joking about this yet.”_ _

__“Are you telling me this joke doesn’t have a leg to stand on?”_ _

__Peter glowers at him viciously._ _

__Wade wiggles his leg at him. “Alright, that was pretty bad, I’ll admit it. Can you forgive knee?”_ _

__It is only the fact that Wade really did die for him a half hour earlier that spares him from having his mouth webbed shut for the rest of the journey._ _

__Finally they reach the building, and Wade directs him down the fire escape to the correct window. The lock is already broken; Wade assures him it has been for months. He gets him through the window and into the living room._ _

__It...looks about how he figured Deadpool’s home would look like. The carpet is stained, there’s bullet holes in several spots on the walls, and he sees at least one bloodstain splattered against a door. He has to sweep wrappers and trash off the couch to set him down, and then he hesitates. “Do you have any towels or something I could put down? You’re still pretty...bloody.”_ _

__Wade waves a hand carelessly. “Just toss me down, this couch has seen worse.”_ _

__“Please god, never tell me what.” He complies, trying to touch the cushions as little as possible._ _

__He gets him settled as gently as he can. “I’m just going to go to the kitchen and get you some water, okay?” He turns around and promptly lets out what he swears is actually a very dignified shriek._ _

__There’s a fuzzy, moving mass the size of a medium dog in the room. Six solid black, glassy eyes watch him from one end. “What the fuck,” he whispers._ _

__“Oh, that’s just Beatrice! Say hi, Beatrice!” Wade says cheerfully. “Hi, Beatrice!” he immediately adds in a high-pitched voice. He laughs. “Don’t worry about her, she won’t hurt you. Turns out she mostly just likes to eat coffee, batteries, and, for some reason, oranges.”_ _

__Peter turns to stare at him. “You’re confused by the oranges and not the batteries?”_ _

__“Batteries are energizing,” he says, in a _duh_ tone of voice. _ _

__Which, Peter supposes, is fair._ _

__“Yeah, okay,” he says, deciding to just go with it. “Right, let me just...get that water for you. He edges past Beatrice into the kitchen._ _

__The kitchen matches the rest of the apartment in cleanliness. He finds no cups in the cupboards, and has to dig one out of the mountain of dirty dishes in the sink and rinse it out. He fills it and brings it back to the living room._ _

__“So, is there anything I can do to help? Bandages or stitches or something?”_ _

__“Aw, you’re so sweet, bugsy! But nah, it’s already healing. This time tomorrow I’ll be right as rain, more or less.” He smiles at him, the mask stretching over his lips. “Thanks for bringing me back here, really, but you can head on home now. I got it from here.”_ _

__Peter cocks his head, considering. Then he plops himself down on the floor, his back against the front of the couch. “Nah,” he says simply. “You got Netflix?”_ _

__Wade twists around to stare down at him. “What do you mean ‘nah’?”_ _

__Peter shrugs. “I mean I’m going to stay until you’re better.” He looks up when Wade uncharacteristically doesn’t respond. “What?”_ _

__“I mean it. Don’t hang around because you feel guilty or some shit. Just go home,” Wade snaps._ _

__“I’m not staying because I feel guilty. I’m staying because your TV is bigger. And because I’m a little worried that the alien caterpillar is going to eat you while you can’t fight back.”_ _

__“Well...you’re...weird, then,” Wade splutters._ _

__Peter snorts. “Hey pot, I’m kettle. Now shut up and concentrate on regrowing your internal organs.”_ _

__“You wanna watch some Jessica Jones?”_ _

__“What’s that?”_ _

__“Oh. I guess that’s probably not on Netflix in this ‘verse, huh? How about Friends?”_ _

__“Heck yeah.”_ _

__“Now, if you get hungry, resist the urge to eat the giant bug. We’ll order a pizza.”_ _

__Peter tosses a fast food wrapper at him._ _

__Wade keeps up a running commentary through the episodes, but they’re at The One With The Blackout before Peter says it._ _

__“My name is Peter, by the way.”_ _

__He’s not facing him, but he feels Wade jolt slightly, cutting off mid-complaint about Ross._ _

__“Is that right?” he murmurs, barely audible over the sound of the TV. “That’s a good name. Peter.”_ _

__Peter hums in agreement. “Thanks, my parents gave it to me.”_ _

__“Good, because if they named you Spider-Man I was going to have to have words.”_ _

__“Good luck with that. They died.” He says it conversationally._ _

__“Ah.” A beat. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__“Don’t be. My aunt and uncle raised me, it was a long time ago. I don’t even really remember them.”_ _

__Wade pokes his shoulder gently. “Your aunt and uncle did a heck of a good job, then.”_ _

__Peter smiles, even though Wade can’t see him. “They’d like you.”_ _

__He hears Wade’s breathing hitch slightly. They’re quiet for a while after that. It’s a full ten minutes before he picks up the commentary again._ _

__Outside, the city lights shimmer in the summer heat as the first rays of dawn begin to glow at the edge of the horizon._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super sorry this took so long to update, everyone! I'm working on chapter 3 as we speak. Let me know what you guys think!!


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